Clever design ideas can help you make the most of the space. Here are six top tips for planning a practical, small kitchen.
1. Zone your kitchen for optimal workflows
The smallest of kitchens, regardless of size or shape can be divided into the five kitchen zones that underpin efficient and easy workflows. There needs to be zones for consumables and non-consumables, as well as cleaning, preparation and cooking. For right-handed people, these zones should be laid out in this order in a clockwise direction, and the order should be reversed for those who are left-handed. This ensures that distances between workspaces are as short as possible, and that everything is conveniently placed within reach when you carry out a cleaning or preparation activity. Designing according to these five zones will save you time and energy.
2. Make every corner count
In a small kitchen, you just cannot afford any dead or difficult spaces and kitchen corner cabinets are always the worst culprits. Choose innovative corner cabinet solutions that give you full and easy access to everything you have stored in it.
3. Replace doors with drawers
One of the main principles of an ergonomic kitchen is to fit base units with drawers instead of shelves and doors. This keeps your workflow simple because everything is easily at hand instead of awkwardly out of reach. Drawers help you save space and provide the easiest access to interiors. Choosing quality, handle-less drawers with superior self-gliding motion makes your life even easier.
4. Organise everything
Don’t skimp on the interiors of your drawers. Good quality dividing systems enable you to organise kitchen utensils, knives, electric gadgets and much more, ensuring that everything that you need in a particular kitchen zone is exactly where you want it to be.
5. Create more storage space
Blum’s Space Tower is an ideal space-optimising pantry solution for the consumables zone in small kitchens. It enables you to neatly store your essential day-to-day items used in daily food preparation such as bread, cereal, sugar, pasta, rice, oils and condiments. Easy to use, the Space Tower’s inner drawers open individually and you can access the contents from the front and both sides.
6. Give wall cabinets a lift
Wall cabinets play an important role in increasing storage space in a small kitchen. Doors fitted with standard cupboard hinges swing directly into your path interfering with your space and workflow. Lift systems allow the doors to lift up and out of the workspace, thereby giving you full access to the interiors of your wall cabinets. Doors can remain open in any desired position while you work and you can find what you need far easier and quicker. Opening and closing these systems is done with the lightest of touches.
